Most of us have had decades of being able to watch the ebb and flow of life. We know that there will be bad times and good times. Most of all we learn how resilient we are. Incredibly resilient. Knock us down and we will eventually get back up, if it is at all possible.
We know that lessons learned in one time frame is usually used in another. So could there be a pattern in the chaos? I know I'm going out on a limb here, but could we be going through hard times in order to prepare ourselves for future happenings? Or better yet, to possibly avoid future happenings?
One of the many emotions to come from difficult experiences is often empathy. It's pretty hard not to have feelings for those going through painful happenings, when you know exactly how they're feeling. Empathy is a good thing. It closes the gap between people. I recently felt great empathy for Jessica Simpson, for example. Not a person in need of sympathy usually, she has a good life in terms of money, talent, beauty. But when she went through a series of breakups, and then had her little dog carried off by a coyote, I felt genuine sympathy. I know what it's like to go through more than one major stressor in a short amount of time.
Which brings me back to patterns in chaos. Over the last decade the US has had it's fair share of disasters. These occurrences also affected the world. Is there anyone who could not feel for the people trapped in the World Trade Center buildings as we were viciously attacked by terrorists? Maybe because they could relate to the horror inflicted by these same people in other parts of the world. And because of that, I could have heart-felt sympathy for the earthquake victims in Haiti. I remember the stories of people saying goodbye to their loved ones in the buildings before the collapse. As for the wars and mismanagement by the last administration, culminating in a disastrous economic meltdown, the world has felt the repercussions of that one, too. So what is my point in all of this?
Could we be in preparation for where we need to be for what is coming in the next decade? Could there be some pattern in the chaos? Do the things we go through as individuals also have an effect on how we view our world - and the peoples of that world? Shouldn't we be "thinking globally" for the next decade in terms of political policy? And this goes for all countries, not just the US. Understanding that the decisions we make in one country have far-reaching effects on others. The people of those "others." Extrapolating the "butterfly effect" and using it in a sociological context:
The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)
Tell me what you think.
